


cork, unstop and let the truth flow

by asterions



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fluff and Angst, Gratuitous Natsume Sōseki Reference(s), M/M, Spoilers, Trans Saihara Shuuichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-17 16:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterions/pseuds/asterions
Summary: “The moon is beautiful tonight, isn't it?”Such a sudden proclamation startles him from his thoughts and as his conversation partner happily gulps down more alcohol, the red-stringed obi falls into the other’s lap, and the peasant looks at the young master directly when he replies, “y-yeah, it is.”(or, two people playing a game of lies and truth are reincarnated through the years.)





	cork, unstop and let the truth flow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elisye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/gifts).



> this isn't particularly good and its really rushed, but, my quest for trying to understand (and failing) saiou is still Underway,,
> 
> anyway this is a really late gift to my pal elicchi who puts up with way too much of my shit and tells me to sleep like a normal human being should... lov u
> 
> fullgame spoilers ahead btw

 

_cork, unstop and let the truth flow_

* * *

 

 

It started on Tanabata; where Orihime and Hikoboshi stretched past the diaphanous veils of the night sky to reunite once again as stars.

Drooping sunflowers stretched on for miles in the countryside beyond them, openly glowing in the moonlight. Below a tree in front of them, two men sat on barrels, drinking shōchū—as their faces too, began to glow happily under the moon itself, when not obscured by winking clouds. The cork is twisted open with a pop as they share the bottle, draining it little by little and laughing happily, their clothes and topknots loose. 

The young master aims at a sly grin but ends up with a dopey smile. The peasant man readjusts (or tries to, anyway) his hachimaki and shyly returns it. Here, nobody can see them, and he takes the chance to gaze at his conversation partner fully. 

The young master’s dark hair has a violet tinge to it, he thinks as the other man pours him more of the drink. This close, he thinks he can smell the nutty, earthy flavor of the alcohol off of him, and it's almost as intoxicating as he thinks, the master’s hair oil could be, especially if he lets it loose and is allowed to help him comb through the knots of the waves, camellias drifting through the air— 

—no, he mustn't think such inappropriate thoughts now. Must be the alcohol talking. 

“The moon is beautiful tonight, isn't it?” 

Such a sudden proclamation startles him from his thoughts and as his conversation partner happily gulps down more alcohol, the red-stringed obi falls into the other’s lap, and the peasant looks at the young master directly when he replies, “y-yeah, it is.”

“Then let’s drink until the morning! The night is still young!”

They die in each other's arms when dawn comes.

 

* * *

 

 

Bannou Shoukichi was a simple fisherman trying to make a living for his family, and one day, the cork wiggled excitedly and he caught a large one. It was that simple, but it wasn't, especially not when the catch was a mermaid.

Shoukichi blinked, his petite frame surprisingly not buckling especially at the sight of the much larger merman. Yep, what he was seeing matched all the old, fantastical stories. Fish-like teeth, glistening golden scales (like his eyes), and (even though the man’s mouth looked ready to scream, but there is recognition in his voice, _why?_ ) a skylark’s musical voice, incomprehensible speech as it was.

His fellow partner on the boat, Togasawa Satoru, yelled and cursed like he usually did when a big catch appeared.

“Hot damn, Shou, we gotta nab that!” He said, pulling out a net from behind him and throwing it.

The merman whined repeatedly and drew back into the net, trying to escape until Satoru tried to cut off a small piece of his tail. He struggled wildly, flailing and keening like a cold, harsh wind until his gilled fingers found a single thread.

Upon pulling at it, the net began to unravel itself, and Shoukichi knew he should be helping to subdue him, but he was rooted to his spot in surprise. An intelligent creature, then. He felt a little bad for having to hurt him like this.

When Satoru noticed the net was gone, he moved to grab at him,  only for the dark-haired merman to leap and disappear into the sea.

Only a hunk of fishy meat and a collapsed net remained as a sign of their struggle.

Satoru was glowing in his accomplishment, presenting the slab of meat to Shoukichi like it was his firstborn son. “Dude, I heard ningyō meat tastes awesome! We’ve gotta try it later!”

Shoukichi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tosogawa, you absolute _fool_.”

“Whoa, surnames, Shou? Why ya’ so mad?”

“Catching a ningyō is bad luck! You need to release it as soon as it’s caught! Otherwise, there will be major storms or wars coming your way! Is the thought of you walking among the rabbits on the moon the only thing in your head?!”

“The last time I saw you get this mad, someone got killed right in front of ya. Take it easy, Shou. Nothing’s gonna come up at us. It's all hogwash, anyway.”

The thick clouds from a distance began to rumble and Shoukichi pointed at the sky while glaring at his friend.

“Well?!”

To his credit, Satoru wised up and started sweating bullets. Wiping the sweat from his chin, he turned pale. “N-no way…”

“We have to get out, quickly!”

Furiously trying to avoid the storm for the next few hours, they faced a growing appetite in trying to get away. The problem was, their only remaining food they had to eat was the mermaid’s tail from earlier. Shoukichi quickly offered it to Satoru, who shook his head vigorously, blowing even harder at his pipe.

“Nuh-uh. After all that freaky occult shit, there's no way I’m eating that. We’ll get to land soon, brother, and then we’ll get some nice, plain sashimi.”

“Eh, even if you wanted eternal youth?” Shoukichi grins. “You could pick up all the chicks and drink all the sake you want without fear of dying. Well, for a coward like Satoru, that’s probably impossible, isn’t it.”

“No matter what’cha say, I ain’t goin’ near that shit. That storm coming when it did is freaky enough. No time for your mood swings or your jokes, we gotta row to shore quick. Either eat the meat or toss it overboard.”

Shoukichi shrugged. Satoru could really act like a cat sometimes. There was no way fish meat could really grant immortality, anyway. “Suit yourself,” he said, eating the pleasant-tasting meat as the storm blew over them.

 

Satoru and Shoukichi got out safely, thank goodness, and were quick to blame the follies on their youth as they grew up. However, Shoukichi’s youthful face seemed to last longer and longer. Satoru heckled him about it a lot, saying things like “always the baby among the lot of us, weren'tcha,” until Satoru was wedded to a long-haired woman in a red kimono, had children, and died when his children had grandchildren. Shoukichi, too, married someone (though he didn't like women all that much romantically, his daughter was his world) and was still perfectly healthy as all his descendants, little by little, began to grow up.

“Papa Shou” easily gave way to “Shoukichi-ōjisan,” which then gave way to so many assortments of names and nicknames that he wasn't entirely sure which name belonged to him anymore.

After some time he began to wander the earth, seeing the cycle of death and life repeat all over again, living as many lives as he could until the world spun and he suddenly became tired, so, so tired of it all.

There was nobody to help, nobody else to trick like some sort of ancient yōkai, and with that he returned to his old town by the sea, passed by the house he and his descendants used to live in (he was sure his great-great-great-grandchild would not recognize him anymore, even if their faces were quite similar, he didn't need to know that) and left for the beach.

His and Satoru’s old, wooden boat was surely destroyed in that storm, so he purchased a new one, and then that one got destroyed, and the boat after that they made sure to repair it anytime they saw a single splinter. He thinks they tucked it in an alcove by the sea, in some sort of nearby cave, but the sea level has risen so far that there’s no way it’s surviving anymore.

So he buys a boat with his meager remaining earnings and rows out, much like the good old days. He’s not sure why it possesses him to do so, but much as he would like his body to stop, it keeps rowing as he merely just watches, waits to see where his boredom will take him. Maybe his great quest to other lands would finally bring him the rest he always wanted.

Closer and closer, looking directly in the direction of the setting sun, he rows forward and onward and back again. He’s not sure where in the world he is, but maybe, Shoukichi thinks, knowing full well it is impossible, he will reach China soon. It's a lie, an idle, glimmering fantasy, like scales of the golden land on a mermaid’s— wait a second.

The halt of his thoughts brings to his mind’s eye a distant, long forgotten memory, and he thinks he must be dreaming, when he touches a gilded mermaid’s tail, must be, he thinks, until the tail and the head whips behind in surprise, and he is faced with a very injured hand and a very surprised merman.

It is only the two of them, almost as if it was meant to be, he and the merman on a single rock in some distant corner of the world, a boat right next to them.

The merman moves aside to let him sit on the rock, the waves lapping at their feet and tail both—they look at one another, and speak.

“Hey—”

_“Shiiasos.”_

They stop at the same time.

 _Even after two hundred and something years, of course, I would be stopped by something as simple as a language barrier,_ Shoukichi thinks sourly. Fine. He’s not used to being understood.

He impulsively drops his head on the merman’s lap, noting the other’s squeak of surprise with satisfaction. He’s almost about to get up, to avoid his head being smashed into the rock, but—

The merman cards his hands through his hair (though it's not too comfortable because of the talons, ouch) and hums a quiet little, nostalgic song, and before surprise can capture him, sleep does.

This time, it’s the last time he does, cradled to his death by the crashing sound of waves and a siren song.

 

* * *

 

When Saigen Yuushi accepts a duel with a boy who just walked up to him, he didn't expect to be this thoroughly creamed already.

This boy, this kid with ridiculously gravity-defying purple hair (a little similar to the cowlicks in his own, he thinks) keeps his Yu-Gi-Oh cards and his poker face down tightly and with that, Yuushi’s hopes of winning this duel similarly plummet.

While deciding on how to begin his next turn, he nervously chances a look at his opponent’s face. It’s almost purposefully blank, as if he were made of marble, never moving, never changing, only made to be watched and to captivate.

But when he catches Yuushi’s eye, he grins cockily and fans his cards by his face in an expression of measured boredom, _come on_ , that expression seems to say, _you’re slow enough already, don’t keep me waiting any longer._

His too-loose grip on his cards grows even shakier, and his vision begins to blur a little, too, his breaths too heavy-set. _Think_ , he tells himself desperately. _What can you do next?_

Kiibo’s voice by his side is enough to pull him to reality. “Remember, you still have Hope,” they remind him. “With Goblindbergh, you can turn the tides of this battle.”

He feels a sudden warmth in his pocket at the reminder, and he nods. Squaring himself up, Yuushi stands ramrod straight from the half-split he was doing earlier and begins his counterattack.

“I normal summon Goblindbergh from my hand!”

A little gremlin on a plane, as per fitting the VR simulation, flies into existence in Attack Mode, grinning and raring to go.

“The effect of Goblindbergh allows me to Special Summon a monster Level 4 or lower from my hand! I choose to Special Summon Patroid!”

“Now that I have two Level 4 monsters on the field, I choose to construct the Overlay Network!” At those words, the bored looking kid perks up, stars in his eyes like from long ago, almost as if he was waiting for this moment.

“Oooh, are you gonna bring it out? Let me see your resolve!”

“XYZ Summon! I call for Aspiring Emperor: Hope!”

An armored monster, hulking and impressive in size, towers across the field at 2500 attack points. Kiibo looks at Yuushi and gives him a solemn nod.

“Now, Yuushi!”

“Aspiring Emperor: Hope attacks your face down card! Hope’s Last Stand!” Hope rushes forward, and—

“Not so fast.” The card flips up. “Marshmallon’s effect states that when it’s attacked while face down, the opposing attacker takes 1,000 points of damage. Plus, Marshmallon cannot be destroyed by battle!”

“Gh,” Yuushi gasps as he suddenly feels winded, the AR field blowing a strong enough realistic wind that feels like a punch to the gut. He doesn't think he has any more moves, but at least he can rest assured that neither monster on his opponent’s field can attack him back. He has a Marshmallon with 300 attack, and Honest, with 1100 attack, neither of which can hurt him, not with Hope’s 2500 attack points. So he timidly calls for a “turn end,” on Kiibo’s direction and waits for it to be over.

“My turn,” the purple-haired boy declares. “Draw!”

He grins at his hand. “This should be interesting. Why not,” he says, making Yuushi nervous. “I make use of Honest’s effect! By sending Honest to the graveyard, a Light-type monster I control gains the same amount of attack as an opponent’s monster I choose! Marshmallon’s attack goes up to 2500, the same as your Aspiring Emperor: Hope!”

Yuushi feels it coming, and despairs. There’s no way he didn't jinx it last turn, he really should've made use of Patroid’s effect, or set down Damage Diet, or—

“Well, Marshmallon already can’t be destroyed by battle, so attacking would already be your demise,” he says, and then flips the one card in his hand to show Yuushi. “But, why not end it here? I got particularly lucky today, after all!”

“With the effect of Ego Boost, I choose to increase Marshmallon’s attack to 3500 until the end of the battle phase! I choose Marshmallon to battle Aspiring Emperor: Hope! Marshmallon… Beam!”

A flash of light overwhelms them, and then Hope is down for the count. Yuushi only had 400 life and no traps or spell cards to counter, so the piercing damage of 1000 hit him hard.

Yuushi was knocked to the ground as the VR effect was taken down and the monsters faded. He was idly aware of his D-Gazer being knocked to the side, but he didn't move to get it until the victor stood over him, rocking his heels back and forth as he waited to Yuushi to take his hand. Begrudgingly, he did so, getting up.

Kiibo floated around him and eyed the purple-haired boy with suspicion, waving his hand in front of him to test if he could see him. Seeing as he couldn't, like most people, Kiibo took a step back and nodded approvingly to Yuushi.

Yuushi wasn't sure what to say to him. What do you even start with, when you lose so terribly to a stranger who fought with fairies and beat you with a literal _creampuff?_

But the boy has stars in his eyes, and Yuushi thinks, oh, he's rather small and cute, unexpectedly, and the boy just begins to gush.

“Uwaaaaaah, so amazing! I can't believe I'm meeting the real Saigen Yuushi-san in person! Can I call you Yuushi-chan? I saw you in the World Dueling Carnival, you were so cool there! Not that you're not cool here, of course, everybody loses from time to time and I wasn't expecting to win at all and—”

Yuushi timidly waves a hand. “Eh-ehm, excuse me, I'm sorry, that's a lot of questions… you seem to know me, but who are you? Have we met?”

The boy takes a step back and exaggeratedly holds his hands over his mouth. “Eh? EHHHH? Are you saying you don't remember me? How could you, Yuushi-chan, I thought we were friends!” He almost looks ready to cry, but Yuushi’s very confused.

Rather tactlessly, he replies, “But I've never met you, though? I’d surely remember a duelist like you. And you also said this is your first time ‘meeting me in person’, wasn't it?”

“Yup, you caught me! That was a lie!”

 _Good grief,_ Yuushi thinks.

“Well, for the sake of the forgettable Yuushi-chan, I'll say it again! My name is Koyoshi Yohisa! Don't forget it again, or I'll have to hunt you down and feed you to the Neo Spacians! I mean, what?”

He just wants to sleep already. Holding out his hand, he asks to shake it. “Nice to meet you, Koyoshi-kun.”

Yohisa eagerly grasps it with both hands and waves his entire arm with intense force up and down. Yuushi thinks he might fly off into Kiibo’s home planet, but then he stops.

Yuushi’s vision is spinning. “Uuuuuuuu…”

Kiibo’s floating in front of his face, and backs up when Yuushi nervously moves to stand up, but there’s a hand in his and he’s pulled too close; and suddenly his nose crashes into someone else’s face, there are warm and slightly-chapped lips meeting his halfway, and he feels eyelashes stroking his eyelid. He backs up in surprise as he almost falls to the floor, but—

Yohisa’s also blushing heavily and it marrs his marble complexion with surprise. So he also wasn’t planning for this to happen. It’s vaguely satisfying to see him off his guard, Yuushi thinks, considering he feels he’s been dancing on the other’s palm this whole time.

Yohisa attempts to regain control of the situation. “Well, this definitely marks a start in our lovey-dovey married life! I guess you’re taking my surname, then, since I won, Yuushi-chan!”

“W-w-wait, you’re skipping too many steps here!”

“Aw, come on, call me Yohisa!”

“No! We _just_ met! Just call me Saigen-kun!!”

Yohisa laughs, and they part ways for the day. Yuushi finds a new card in his pocket he was sure he didn’t buy.

 

The next day, he finds out Yohisa has transferred into his class, and he charms his way into Yuushi’s pack of friends easily with his childish, hard-to-hate antics. And even after months of Dueling extraterrestrial forces who wanted to doom the world as they knew it, Yohisa's still clinging to his arm and pestering him constantly.

Begrudgingly, Yuushi admits he's gone soft. Yohisa is a more loyal friend than anyone could've expected. When Yuushi begins to call him "Yohisa-kun," he's over the moon.

"Wow, if I didn't know better, I'd think you liked me instead of Kaori-chan! I'm so loved!"

Kaori laughs. "We all love you, Koyoshi-kun. Even if you are a bit of a brat sometimes."

The next day, blonde-haired, eternally smiling Kaori is ripped from them, her hand reaching for Yuushi’s futilely before she and her captor teleport away.

He cries on Yohisa’s shoulder.

“What am I even going to say? Kaori was the one who took me in when I had no family left and I couldn’t even,” a sob, “protect her for all she’s done for me.”

Yohisa pulls Yuushi in closer, forcing him to hunch over the smaller boy, and wraps his arms fully around him, rubbing circles on his back as he does so. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely bring her back for you,” Yohisa says, lips pressed into Yuushi’s collarbone in a thin line.

“You should go rest. It's really late,” he says with uncharacteristic gentleness, lightly pushing Yuushi off of him.

“I’m not sure if I can sleep with her gone…”

“Then you can take the spare futon at my house, come on.”

There is no spare futon, so they’re forced to share the bed. Despite this, Yuushi doesn’t protest about being uncomfortable, and Yohisa doesn’t make any remarks about it.

He’s oddly silent, actually. It scares him.

“Why… aren’t you saying anything?”

It’s as if he flipped a switch. The suddenly deep-in-thought Yohisa giggles loudly enough that Yuushi is scared he’ll wake the neighbors.

“When will you learn volume control, Yohisa-kun…”

“That’s kind of why I was attempting to keep quiet,” he shyly affirms. “I wanted you to be able to sleep properly.”

“Well, thank you for the thought, but—”

“It’s too cold, isn’t it?”

“How did you know?”

Another laugh. “I know everything, Yuushi-chan. For instance, did you know that if you eat the meat from a mermaid’s tail, you’ll live for several centuries? I thought that was interesting.”

“You’re definitely pulling my leg.”

Yohisa’s face pulls completely and utterly blank, both like and unlike the expression from earlier.

“No. I’m not.”

Yuushi feels the cold sweat on the back of his neck. Is he… looking for something?

“Just kidding!”

Yuushi breathes a sigh of relief.

“No way, did you really believe me?”

“I—I did not!”

Despite the high tension, Yuushi falls into dreamless sleep, even with his binder on. The last thing he hears is a soft, breathy “I guess he doesn’t know, huh,” and he loses consciousness.

When he wakes up, Yohisa is nowhere to be seen, and when Yuushi walks into Kaori’s room, she lies asleep in her bed cocooned by pure white feathers.

And as much as it pains for him to admit it when he twines the spun-gold strands of hair from Yohisa's bed around his finger, he knows exactly where Yohisa is.

 

Yuushi reaches the Altar of Judgement and sees Yohisa again.

Instead of purple hair, Yohisa’s hair is the expected golden shade, and they wear clothes of flowing white instead of that ratty black hoodie they always have (had) on.

To put it bluntly, they look angelic, and as the wings on the other’s back unfurl, stretching to their widest wingspan, Yuushi feels the lead drop in his stomach. It’s wrong, it’s all so _wrong_ to him.

This isn't the Yohisa he knows.

Yohisa clicks his tongue. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue, Yuushi-chan?”

“Why are you doing this?” Yuushi asks instead.

“Why? Because fate told me to. Just as it told me that your friend Kiibo there was a creation of devils and that he was a threat.”

“But Kaori—”

“If you really think that was me who returned her, save your breath, Yuushi-chan. There was a traitor with traitorous feelings in our ranks. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t want to die here, you’ll have to face me. If you lose… your hope-boy by your side is really going to die, you know.” They gesture to the broken pendant that Kiibo is resting in, and pulls out their new, avian-style Duel Disk.

"Duel!"

 

Yohisa drives him into a corner again.

“Yuushi-chan, how boring. You haven’t improved at all.”

“Sh-shut up! My turn! I draw!”

He blankly stares at the three other cards he has in his hand, and then the two cards face down, then looks at Yohisa’s side of the field. One face-up card, Marshmallon, with 300 attack points. 1900 life points on Yohisa’s side, no monsters and 900 life points on Yuushi’s.

He takes a gamble.

“I activate Single Purchase! When there are three other cards in my hand, and none are monsters, I can choose to banish the three I have and add a monster from my deck to my hand! I also choose to activate my face down card, “Teleport,” which allows me to pay 800 life points to special summon a card from my hand! Come, Space Time Police!”

“When this card is special summoned, I can banish a monster of your choosing! I choose to banish Marshmallon!”

“Too bad, Yuushi-chan. I activate the trap card, Imperial Iron Wall. No monsters on this field can be banished, now what will you do—”

Yuushi wordlessly flips up a face down card and watches Yohisa’s face fall. “Royal Decree,” Yohisa recites. “The card I gave you after our first duel. Negates all other traps on the field.”

“That’s right.”

Marshmallon fades from the field, and Space-Time Police attacks, knocking Yohisa to the floor and scattering feathers all around.

The pendant on Yohisa’s neck breaks, and somehow he can see it all, all the memories—the drinking they did on the first time they met, all the way to the last time, where he was a merman and Yohisa was a fisherman—and it gives Yuushi pause as it all hits him.

“You said… ‘I guess he didn’t remember this time.’”

“I did.”

“How many times have we met?”

“Who knows? We have an imperfect set of memories. Every time you’re reincarnated, one of us holds them and one of us does not. Even then, it’s not like it’s us remembering entire lives. If I were to hold about two hundred years of memories in one sitting, that would be a bit too much for the human mind to take. So Fate decided to just give us glimpses of what could be while ignoring how they tear people apart in the ways they want to bring them together.”

“You’re assuming I don’t want to be with you.”

Yohisa chuckles with surety. “You don’t. You’re a living being with your own memories and your own relationships."

They're right. Yuushi isn't the same person as either of his past lives, even though there are similarities between them. Who does he like? If he wasn't sure of his answer, he'd be troubled, but—

"You. I like _you_. How hard is it for you to realize? And you like me too, don't you? As Koyoshi Yohisa, not as Shoukichi or anyone else."

"Are you sure about that? Isn't that just because of your previous memories? Would you want to leave Kaori alone, even though Fate says it should be so?”

“But you brought her back anyway.”

They don't even deny it, chuckling instead. “You’re too simple minded, Yuushi. If Fate let me do it, that means there has to be a reason for it. Just as it has decided that we can dance around each other for hundreds of years.”

Yuushi breathes in harshly. “Enough, then! If everything is so controlled by fate as you say, then why did it let me win? ”

“Huh?”

“Why did it let us meet like this?”

“T-This isn’t something a mere human can know—”

Yuushi’s beyond the point of caring or being worried or reigning in his temper. He’s just been so tired lately, he thinks. One day, just one day that I can go without some form of a fight would be nice, he wonders. But it looks like he’ll have to cease it himself.

He cups his hands and yells into the sky like he has a megaphone. “Fate, if you’re so confident you can pull us apart again, I _dare_ you to try!”

He feels a smile, and everything goes white.

 

* * *

 

 

They don’t even exist in the same hemisphere this time around, and when a black haired boy graduates middle school, an old man scratches at his curly white hair as if wishing for the strands to turn purple again.

“Saigen Yuushi,” the old man mutters as he dies, his family by his side. They’ve long stopped making sense of what he’s said.

Halfway across the world, a boy graduating high school feels a sting in his heart. He blames it on nostalgia.

 

* * *

 

 

When Hayashibara Ryouga sees a small, purple-haired boy called Shimono Makoto audition for the 53rd season of Danganronpa, he realizes he’s made a grave mistake.

So I've lost for good, he thinks as he goes under the knife.

The next time they meet is in Saishuu Academy’s Killing Game, as Ouma Kokichi and Saihara Shuuichi.

The whole world knows how that ends.

 

* * *

 

 

…Or does it?

 

Saihara Shuuichi wakes up with all his memories restored in a hospital bed, celebratory cheers ringing out as he is told he has won a game of life and death inside a Virtual Reality simulation. His fellow survivors stand with him, and stick by him and growl when they are told they have to make a public appearance as people who have participated in the killing game.

The first thing he does when the party is over is run out of the room to the confused yells of Maki and Himiko, and search for a single hint of purple. He saw him during the party, he was sure of it, and now that there aren't people mobbing him constantly, maybe he can finally talk to him. 

Privately, he's still on edge due to his anxiety, and hopes for the most likely outcome that Kokichi has picked a quiet spot to hide.

He sees a slim back and curly purple hair walking through the hall, and without thinking, he reaches out—

—until Ouma Kokichi spins around and trips him.

He crashes to the floor, seeing only Ouma's feet. “Nishishi. Saihara-chan, you really are predictable.”

“And you’re not, as always.” He smiles back at him.

A pregnant pause, one with full and sudden remembrance and gravity falls over them.

Shuuichi somehow finds it in himself to speak.

"Are you going to run away?"

Kokichi does a dramatic gasp. "Me? No _way_ , Saihara-chan. Who do you think I am? A Supreme Leader fears nothing! I have the palm of the world in my hand, you know. If you ever want to see someone assassinated, you know who to call!"

Shuuichi chuckles at the extravagant display, but he somehow feels a pang of loneliness from those words.

A thought comes into his head, and he's not entirely sure where it comes from. If he does it, and Ouma-kun rejects, they'll be in an even worse spot than before. No matter what, he doesn't want Ouma-kun to hate him. Not now, not ever. But he can at least ask.

He stands at his full height. He's only average, but Kokichi's almost always been smaller than him in previous lives, and it seems to continue even now.

"I'm going to hug you," he says, holding his arms out but not actually approaching any closer.

Kokichi tilts his head up at him. "What's this, Saihara-chan? Did you miss me that much?"

Shuuichi can't believe his eyes. Kokichi's  _not running away._

He pulls him close, resting his chin on Kokichi's head. Kokichi tenses, his arms limply falling to his side.

"I did. And I would love to get to know you again."

 

They spend the rest of the week avoiding the nurses together until they get discharged. Taking his hand, Shuuichi walks Kokichi outside into blinding daylight, masked only by the slightest shadows of the trees.

“Well, I have an apartment over in Shibuya that I’ve bought, if you want to live together? Make up for lost time?”

“Saihara-chan is so manly right now—I’m about to swoon!”

“H-hey, you’re going to fall!”

 

Kokichi lets Shuuichi catch him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this was at least somewhat decent??? im still trying to figure out how to interpret and write their relationship so im just lowkey like, help... ill do better in the future!!
> 
> thank you to user @Mistropolis for betaing!!! you're the best! <3


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